Israeli Forces Fire on Border Crashers

Protesters take part in a demonstration close to the Syrian-Israeli border fence near the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights June 5, 2011, marking the 44th anniversary of the start of the 1967 Six-Day War in which Israel captured East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Allyn Fisher-Ilan, Reuters

Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday at Palestinian protesters in Syria who rushed toward a border fence and Syrian state television said six demonstrators were killed.

“Anyone who tries to cross the border will be killed,” Israeli soldiers shouted at the crowd of several hundred through loudspeakers in the Golan Heights.

Sunday marked the 44th anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War, and Israel had been on alert for a repeat of last month’s storming by thousands of Palestinians in protest of Israel’s frontiers with Syria and Lebanon.

Thirteen people were killed in those demonstrations marking the Naqba, or what Palestinians term the “catastrophe” of Israel’s founding in 1948.

Rallying again to calls on Facebook to march to Israel, Palestinians in Syria descended from a hilltop overlooking the Druze village of Majdal Shams and reached the border they dispute, that before last month had been largely tranquil for decades.

Syrian TV said six protesters were killed by Israeli gunfire and 13 injured. Israel’s chief military spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai, said troops had opened fire but that he could not confirm any casualties.

He told Israeli Army Radio that if the Syrian state television death toll was correct and Israeli soldiers had succeeded in stopping protesters from breaching the fence, then, “I think that’s a measured, focused, and proper response.”

A Reuters correspondent at the scene saw at least 10 demonstrators carried away on stretchers by the crowd but no sign of any holes in the main border barrier.

Protesters did cut through strands of barbed wire that Israel placed in an area between the fence, which is located inside Israel, and the Syria frontier designated by UN stone markers.

FLAG PLANTED

Protesters planted a Palestinian flag at the barrier on the rocky plateau, which Israel captured along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 conflict.

Hours before the violence flared, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to act with restraint, but with determination, to prevent any border breach.

“To my regret, today there are extremists around us trying to breach our borders and threaten our towns and citizens. We will not allow this,” Netanyahu told his cabinet.

Facing demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, Israeli marksmen crouched in positions along the Syrian frontier. A spotter next to the riflemen peered at the protesters through long-range binoculars.

At one point, protesters in a trench turned eastward toward Mecca and bowed in prayer.

There were no reports of incidents along the Lebanese border. In the occupied West Bank, about 100 Palestinian protesters marched to an Israeli military checkpoint, where soldiers fired teargas and the crowd fled.

A Palestinian medic said 14 Palestinians were wounded by rubber bullets in ensuing clashes between stone-throwing youths and Israeli forces, who also deployed a “skunk mobile,” a vehicle that sprays demonstrators with a smelly liquid.

Israeli officials have said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has given the green light for the Golan protests to try to divert international attention from his bloody quashing of the popular revolt against his authoritarian rule.

The border protests by unarmed demonstrators have raised Israeli concerns that Palestinians, inspired by popular revolts in the Arab world, have adopted a new tactic calculated to draw a violent response and boost world sympathy for their cause.

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2 thoughts on “Israeli Forces Fire on Border Crashers”

I truly believe that Allah and his prophet are simple manifestations of the adversary. No matter how hard Israel tries to appease the quartet, and the Koranic Muslims, it is never enough. Any rational human being with seven ounces of compassion and understanding can easily see that the only thing the quintet wants is the complete eradication of all Jews along with the Jewish homeland. What none of them want to do is to read the ancient prophecies that are coming alive even as we speak. What wounds my spirit is that there are so many who so passionately hate Israel and their own relatives. Pray for the shalom of Yerushalayim.